Mobile device communication capabilities, in addition to supporting voice conversations with other phones, now increasingly include a variety of text messaging technologies some of them previously available in personal computers (PCs). Text messaging technologies include e-mail, Instant Messaging (IM), facsimile, short messaging, and multimedia messaging. The Short Messaging Service (SMS) is a store and forward method of transmitting short messages to and from mobiles devices. SMS can also be used to transmit e-mail and IM messages though further forwarding and/or message converting may be required. The Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) transmits messages to and from mobile communication devices in a store-and-retrieve manner, but MMS allows a combination of text, sounds, images, and video.
Although e-mail, SMS, MMS, and push e-mail are store-and-forward or store-and-retrieve systems that utilize a gateway to pass messages from senders to recipients, there are differences between these text messaging technologies. The most obvious difference is the length and the complexity of the messages. E-mail allows the attachment of files, the embedding of images, and allows the use of HTML. SMS messages are generally short text based messages. A user, however, can send a business card that includes an image of the person where the image data is translated into text data for example using base64 conversion. MMS messages allow sounds, images, and video in addition to text. Additionally, SMS messages are delivered directly to the device; whereas, e-mail may not be immediately delivered directly to the device, but may be stored in mail servers and sent either periodically or fetched by a user's client application when the user logs onto the e-mail system. Through push e-mail, e-mail messages that have been received by a desktop or server mail system are automatically transmitted to a PDA, laptop, or other portable device to keep mobile users up-to-date. Push e-mail also includes e-mail messages automatically transmitted to a user including selected sports scores, weather, and other news information. This type of push technology uses e-mail as its distribution method rather than a specialized client application.
In addition to processing voice calls from traditional wired and wireless phones, communication devices now also communicate with other types of devices such as computers of all form factors, Personal Data Assistants (PDAs) or handheld PCs, Instant Messaging Devices (IMD), etc. Additionally, communication devices have merged the capabilities of cellular telephones, PDAs, IMDs, and computing devices and now provide increasingly sophisticated applications.
An application provides the communication device with the ability to perform a wide variety of tasks including drafting documents, communicating with others, preparing presentations, presenting presentations, creating movies and music, maintaining schedules, etc. An application is a set of instructions that, when executed, cause the communication device to behave in a predetermined manner. The instructions may be written using one or more programming languages, assembly languages, scripting languages, etc. Additionally, add-on modules can be run inside another application. The term “execution” is the process of running an application or the carrying out of the operation called for by an instruction. For the application to execute, the application may be translated into a machine language that the communication device can understand. Alternatively, no translation may be required.
A user executes an application by selecting the application for launch. Launching the application generally requires retrieving the executable from a permanent memory device and copying the executable to a temporary memory device, however in sometimes, such as when XIP memory is used application code can be executed from memory (such as flash memory) without loading the application into a temporary device. The temporary memory device is generally some form of random access memory (RAM). The RAM or system memory holds the operating system and executing applications so that they can be reached quickly by the computer's processor. RAM is much faster to read from and write to than permanent memory devices such as a hard disk, a floppy disk, a CD-ROM, etc. However, the data in RAM is volatile meaning that it remains only as long as the computer is powered on. When the computer is powered off, RAM loses its data. Alternatively, using execute in place, an application stored in read only memory or flash memory may be run directly from the location where it is stored. The execution does not require the program to be copied into RAM before execution.
Communication devices generally are small and lightweight because the desire is for an easily portable device. As a result, the display and the input areas are small and generally more tedious to use. Some devices may have a small keyboard provided, while others provide a pen and touch interface. Use of the pen and touch interface may entail use of an on-screen keyboard such that the user “types” by selecting each letter from the on-screen keyboard with a pen or stylus. Alternatively, a pen and touch interface may entail use of a tablet on which the user “writes.” The devices may or may not include a mouse, a track ball, or other buttons to facilitate input to the device. There is a need to reduce the amount of text entry required for text messaging applications in all computing devices because typing can be tedious, time consuming, and error prone. The need to reduce the amount of text entry is particularly acute when a communication device is used because the size of the device is small and the data entry is more tedious that with full sized devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,085,201 describes a context-sensitive template engine that generates a context-sensitive text message corresponding to an input text string. The template engine decomposes the input text string into search words that are then used to search a database of predefined templates to identify a contextually appropriate template based on the input text string. The identified template may then be used to generate a responsive text message. The identified template may include a number of fields that require the user to choose an entry or select an entry using some form of input method such as a scroll button or through typing. Example shortcomings to the described context-sensitive template engine are the need to define an input text string and the requirement to manually fill fields in the template, thus still requiring text entry or some other input from the user.
Some cellular operators provide information services using SMS (e.g. news, sports news, weather forecast, etc.). Using SMS requires that the user remember the form of a message and a phone number to which the message is sent to receive the service. However, it is difficult for a user to remember the required content of the SMS message and the phone number in order to use a specific service. MyInfo, a utility, addresses this problem by allowing a user to define and to arrange SMS services in an easy to use hierarchical list. A user browses through the list, selects a service, and then sends the service request. MyInfo also supports SMS message templates that are preformed messages such that the user manually fills in the context based fields of the message. For example, a template such as “I will call you in [minutes] minutes” prompts the user to enter the [minutes] field of the text message. Thus, there is still a requirement to manually enter some fields in the template.
What is needed, therefore, is a method of automatically filling some or all of the fields of a template based message. What is further needed is a method of creating routine messages that requires fewer text entries, and thus less time, and minimizes syntax errors made by the user.